Kistler, Robert “Bob”

Robert Heid Kistler lived a life shaped by showmanship, loyalty, humor, and intellect. Known by many names, Bob, Fats, UB, and Bobby, he was direct, exacting, and deeply loyal to the people he loved. In every setting, Bob applied intelligence, focus, and a clear sense of how things ought to work.

Born in Miami, the son of musicians, Bob grew up in a close-knit family. From the very beginning, he had a knack for figuring things out and then figuring out how to make them better. With his engineering mind, he was forever taking things apart and building them back up again, especially anything electrical, driven by an instinct to understand how things worked and how they could be improved.

Creativity was always part of his life. He loved photography and filmmaking and, together with his brother, made home movies, often westerns, that mixed storytelling with technical ingenuity. Games were another constant. His parents were avid bridge players, and Bob learned to play cards early. Chess followed, along with a lifelong love of games that rewarded strategy, precision, and cleverness, qualities that later made him a true card shark who routinely bested friends and family at bridge and poker.

Bob left home for his senior year to join the first graduating class at the new campus of Principia Upper School. In his college years, Bob was a bit of a ham and an unapologetic prankster. He loved staged gags, playful setups, and getting a reaction, usually with a straight face. During this time, he continued making films with friends and became known for photographs staged at his house Rackham Court West. 

At Principia College in Elsah, Illinois, Bob earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and went on to pursue advanced study in mathematics at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

When asked what he was most proud of in his life, he answered simply, his work. Bob devoted his professional life to the thoughtful application of mathematics, science, and computing during some of the most formative decades of modern technology. He quietly shaped systems that supported space exploration, national defense, healthcare, and the evolving world of modern information technology, approaching his work with extraordinary discipline, focus, and an exceptionally strong work ethic.

Beginning his career in the late 1960s working with NASA, including at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on the Apollo space mission and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, Bob helped develop deep-space trajectory prediction programs and designed specialized software. His work brought together abstract mathematics and real-world engineering in ways that were both elegant and practical. During this period, he also worked with Lockheed Electronics Company in Houston on advanced technical projects.

As his career evolved, Bob turned his focus toward large-scale modeling and simulation, designing decision-support systems for government agencies such as the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

He later continued this work in Massachusetts with Dynamics Research Corporation and Quality Decision Management, where he moved into senior and principal roles in commercial software development. During this period, Bob became a recognized expert in Lotus Notes and Domino technologies and played a central role in building large, reliable systems, including healthcare resource management platforms and web-based enterprise applications. He approached this work with the same care and discipline that defined his career, and he was especially respected for his insistence on system integrity.

Outside of his career, Bob had wide-ranging interests and passions. He loved magic, Hitchcock films, photography, science fiction, especially Star Trek, musicals, and technology. He dabbled as a radio disc jockey and had a lifelong devotion to The Beatles. He took particular joy in sharing and dissecting these interests with others and maintained a distinctly sardonic sense of humor. Bob was also a natural storyteller and the careful keeper of family history, making sure stories, records, and memories were saved and shared.

An early adopter of new technology, he embraced YouTube and video conferencing as ways to stay connected, often sharing old family nostalgia clips and moments from his current life with family spread across the country.

He also loved performing, spending more than five years with the Little Theatre of Alexandria and later ten years on stage with City Theater in Biddeford, Maine. During his college years, Bob played in bands including Mercy Brothers and The Garbagemen, formed with friends who remained part of his life for decades.

A lifelong football fan, Bob was first devoted to the St. Louis Rams and later cheered passionately for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Bob’s life was grounded in deep commitment to his family and his work. He was preceded in death by his parents, Robert Scott Kistler and Margaret Kistler nee Heid; his brother, John Scott Kistler; and his first wife, Betty Lynn Kistler  nee Meserve. He is survived by his wife of more than thirty years, Patricia Annl Kistler nee Boll, to whom he was deeply devoted; his daughter, Julia Kistler Stewart; his sister, Laura Proctor; his grandsons, Braden and Tristan Stewart. 

Bob shared a deep and abiding love with his brothers and sisters in-law, and with his nieces and nephews throughout the country, from Maine to California

Bob passed away peacefully on January 4, 2026, in St. Louis, Missouri, at the age of 82.

No formal service will be held. A Celebration of Life is being planned in the coming weeks in St. Louis. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to a charity of the donor’s choosing in Bob’s name.